Quote: Here's an abridged version of how it was done. And I'll skip the part of penciler/inker/colorist because most people understand how the art was done.

1) The original artwork arrives at the printer where it is reduced to comic size by shooting it with a very large horizontal camera.2) The image is now on a piece of film in negative form.3) The film and color instructions are matched up by a "stripper" to begin his job of putting color into the negative. (Note that the "color instructions" are what the colorist painted up with Dr. Martin watercolors, and are often seen sold on eBay)4) The stripper takes a clear piece of mylar and begins the tedious task of masking out every single area by various methods. This was known as "Flatting".5) The stripper makes a separate *hand cut* mask for every different color seen on the page. For instance, there was a mask for the light blue in Spidey's costume. It might also have a few other spots on it that had the same exact light blue in other areas of the page. Another for the dark blues. Another for the light reds. Medium reds. Dark reds. And so on. This process took hours per page to complete. On complicated pages it's possible it took 24 hours plus of hand work on some individual pages.6) Now that the flatting is done, he can begin to compose the images into the four negatives needed for printing. (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (or Key as it is called in the printing world))7) The stripper has four unexposed pieces of film. One for each color. He takes the piece used for the black and pins it in a vacuum exposure frame. Then he sorts through his pile of multiple masks and exposes each one, one at a time, onto the piece of raw film. Note that the black will contain the line art, plus multiple other screen values and gradients with other masks that contain black ink.8) Once this color has been composed, he can then move on to do the same thing for each of the remaining 3 colors. One color could take upwards of 5 to 10+ minutes plus to expose.9) Now that the four colors have been composed into 4 pieces of film, they need to be proofed. To proof the page was to take the colors and create a full color representation of what the printed page would look like. Often at this point the stripper would check his work and notice he made a mistake on an element in the page. This could be a minor mistake that would only take him 30 minutes to repair, or could send him back to work the page up from scratch.10) After an acceptable proof has been produced, the printer packs them up and mails them to the editor. The editor would look them over and make corrections that were stripper errors, or he could possibly completely change it because it didn't turn out the way it had originally been envisioned.11) The proofs are returned with corrections noted... that again, could be nothing, or could cause the page to be completely redone.This process took weeks to complete for a book. Obviously the strippers were working on other comics while waiting on the corrections to return, so it was a daily grind.

Once everything was acceptable, the pages were laid out on a grid to be exposed onto the printing plates. The plates in the old days were crude and not very quality minded.The theory back then was to print comics.Print LOTS of comics as quickly as possible.

Ok...fast forward to present day.Now comics are colored quickly (by the COLORIST) on a computer, underneath the quickly scanned lineart and a file is created for each page.That file is color separated inside a computer and digitally imaged with a laser directly onto plates that are FAR superior to the plates of old.

Quote:Marvel Chipping has been blamed on dull blades when the book was trimmed.I'm skeptical of this because a dull blade would possibly only give a jagged edge, sort of like what you see as a common problem on Amazing Spider-Man #300.

I'd think a more likely possiblity would be poor paper quality that gets flaky on the edges as time and oxygen break down the fibers.The edges of this particular paper would be more likely to flake.I could be completely wrong, but I think it's a possiblity.Borock may have a better soloution this defect because of his experience with looking at so many examples of it.

While I have no way of proving my idea...I'd need to see some solid proof before I believe the dull blade theory.I have a hard time believing that the bindery blade was dull for 15-20 years.If it was possible to trace the paper down to the mill, I'd bet the paper on all these chipped books came from the same source.

This is a hard one to answer because it is not something that takes time to become evident, and can't be seen immediately.

Who knows...In 20 years when we have Marvel Chipping on all the ASM 300's and Hulk 340's, we may have the question answered.

Jerry Weist attributes the chipping to how thin the paper stock was on early Marvels. He says in his new book in reference to AF#15 that Marvel was near bankruptcy and was using super thin paper stock to save money. As a result, the chips came off the edges when the cutting blades went through the paper (instead of a clean cut that you'd get if you used better paper). Steve Borock told me a while back that Marvel chipping and pre-chipping existed when the book was on the rack, although on books with brittle paper (whether early Marvels or not) the chipping could obviously have happened at any time in the lifespan of the book.

There is also the theory that chipping occurs from tiny tears that form from the bent overflash that Marvels had back in the day. As the tears get bigger, pieces come off. This likely happens on some books with overflash, but I have seen so many books that don't have overflash that still have chipping, that this can't explain how the chips happened on every book.

drbannerdrbannerI think all the people repeatedly crying about not getting a custom title should be inducted into the "Crybaby Crew", and forever carry that as their custom title!

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Quote:There is also the theory that chipping occurs from tiny tears that form from the bent overflash that Marvels had back in the day. As the tears get bigger, pieces come off. This likely happens on some books with overflash, but I have seen so many books that don't have overflash that still have chipping, that this can't explain how the chips happened on every book.

I agree, the majority of MC occurs along the right edge of the book where there is no overflash, so I don't know how much water this theory holds. There's also the possibility the ink layer was somewhat brittle, or had other properties that caused the "crack" the led to the chip, like putting fingernail polish on a piece of paper and trying to cut it with a scissors...

Not much to say here other than a Quality Control problem.
If the cover is misaligned during binding, it can have have a bad wrap on the book.
The trim could run high or low causing additional problems.
By "wrap" I mean how the black line dividing the front and back cover not falling perfectly on the spine.

Now for something you might not know...
This is a problem that is much more common in the Bronze Age than any other age.
If you've ever seen a book where the spine line lays perfectly on the spine, but the "Marvel Comics Group" banner runs slightly diagonal compared to the top edge of the book.
One possibility is that the trim of the book is skewed (the sides are not a perfect 90 degrees from the others).
However, if you see this to be an extremely common flaw on a particular book, it's quite possible the Original Artwork itself is skewed.
Example below...
The red lines are perfectly parallel, but look at the lines that make up the "King-Sized Annual" banner.

This is common on a lot of books from the Bronze Age.
Marvel Spotlight #5, and Ghost Rider #1 (Two of my favorites) have this problem.
And it all goes back to the original art.

I have no idea why some of the covers were built this way, and some were not.

If you've ever seen a book where the spine line lays perfectly on the spine, but the "Marvel Comics Group" banner runs slightly diagonal compared to the top edge of the book.

You nailed that one, Dice. I have a protractor in my "tool kit" and yes, I have seen quite a number of not-90 degree cuts! Yet the spine is nice and aligned. Just the top/bottom that is not so nicely aligned!

Quote:What did they do with all the printing plates once that run of comics was finished?

Back in the days at least until the late 1970's two sets of plates were created for each job.Because it took so long to make the plates, they made two sets in the event something happened to a plate during the run.That way they wouldn't have to shut the press down and wait for a new plate to be made.

After the press run, the plates were melted and recycled for new plates.The plates used during the Silver through Bronze ages were large, heavy, and made of lead.Not very practical for a collector today.

However...I personally know someone that has several of them.When this type of plate was dated and no longer being used, a few of these were saved for nostalgic purposes.Some of these are the originals used to print the books, and some are the backups.The backup plates are very very pretty. The used ones are a bit beat up and inky.I've personally seen them. (There was an unknown issue of Amazing Spider-Man on one.)Sometime down the road, I'll see if I can get pictures of them so you can see what they look like.It's quite possible these are among very few that still exist, due to the size and weight.Not many people would have saved them.

Quote:Marvel Chipping has been blamed on dull blades when the book was trimmed.I'm skeptical of this because a dull blade would possibly only give a jagged edge, sort of like what you see as a common problem on Amazing Spider-Man #300.

I'd think a more likely possiblity would be poor paper quality that gets flaky on the edges as time and oxygen break down the fibers.The edges of this particular paper would be more likely to flake.I could be completely wrong, but I think it's a possiblity.Borock may have a better soloution this defect because of his experience with looking at so many examples of it.

While I have no way of proving my idea...I'd need to see some solid proof before I believe the dull blade theory.I have a hard time believing that the bindery blade was dull for 15-20 years.If it was possible to trace the paper down to the mill, I'd bet the paper on all these chipped books came from the same source.

This is a hard one to answer because it is not something that takes time to become evident, and can't be seen immediately.

Who knows...In 20 years when we have Marvel Chipping on all the ASM 300's and Hulk 340's, we may have the question answered.

Jerry Weist attributes the chipping to how thin the paper stock was on early Marvels. He says in his new book in reference to AF#15 that Marvel was near bankruptcy and was using super thin paper stock to save money. As a result, the chips came off the edges when the cutting blades went through the paper (instead of a clean cut that you'd get if you used better paper). Steve Borock told me a while back that Marvel chipping and pre-chipping existed when the book was on the rack, although on books with brittle paper (whether early Marvels or not) the chipping could obviously have happened at any time in the lifespan of the book.

There is also the theory that chipping occurs from tiny tears that form from the bent overflash that Marvels had back in the day. As the tears get bigger, pieces come off. This likely happens on some books with overflash, but I have seen so many books that don't have overflash that still have chipping, that this can't explain how the chips happened on every book.

I agree with the thin, cheap paper theory.I have a hard time swallowing the bit about a dull blade.

Quote:I agree, the majority of MC occurs along the right edge of the book where there is no overflash, so I don't know how much water this theory holds. There's also the possibility the ink layer was somewhat brittle, or had other properties that caused the "crack" the led to the chip, like putting fingernail polish on a piece of paper and trying to cut it with a scissors...

I can't answer for the ink used in the 60's, but today's ink is very pliable.It doesn't set up hard like nail polish.But I know today's ink is quite different than what was printed years ago.

It's possible this could have contributed to the chipping problem, but I have no way to prove it one way or the other.